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Trade unions at war in Venezuela

At least 273 union workers and leaders have been murdered since 2005. The Venezuelan State, rather than tackling the problem, adds fuel to fire from the directorship of the state-run basic industries

In June, a rumpus kicked up at the gates of Ferrominera left some injured persons and one dead: Ronny Rojas, employee and PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) activist (Photo: William Urdaneta / Correo del Caroní)

OSCAR MEDINA | EL UNIVERSAL

OSCAR MEDINA | EL UNIVERSAL

Saturday November 05, 2011 12:00 AM

In case it is true we cannot call what is happening in Guayana "labor union violence," it is a warning that should be taken into consideration. "This is not solely about a clash between union groups," warns José Luis Morocoima, activist of the aluminum sector: "This portrays the natural confrontation among union members and employers, but this time a new particularity stands out: bosses now appeal to paramilitary groups in order to charge at their employees."

Morocoima is the general secretary of the Single Union of the Bauxite, Aluminum and Related Industries (Sutralumina). On May 17, he was attending a worker meeting at Bauxilum, which was attacked by supposed labor union members in the construction sector. Morocoima was both shot and hit, and they also made him deaf temporarily, a damage, which required surgery.

Sutralumina's director and the very general secretary blamed members of Muralla Roja, a pro-government organization in the building sector, on being the authors of the attack and publicly held the president of Bauxilum, José China liable for instigating such violent acts.

Morocoima has been investigating since some time ago the issue of violence around labor unions in the region and this observation process - besides having gone through it - allows him to provide a relatively recent element to the in itself complicated scene: "Violent attacks carried out by these groups which I label as paramilitary groups do not represent isolated events. These events are the result of an official policy devised by the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG)."

Moreover, he gives an example: "We know that Jorge Amaya, the CVG general manager of Loss Prevention and Risk Management, arranged meetings with the labor union activists of the building industry in Guayana who have split their areas of work. They were all summoned to go to the CVG and set plans to launch an attack on worker protests for lack of investment, their workplace conditions and vindication of their claims. The Venezuelan State has not answers for any of the calls made from workers of state-run basic industries, and the only thing it has at hand is trying to silence them by asking violent groups to do the dirty job for them."

Business policy

José Gil, former general secretary of Worker Union of Aluminum of Caroní (Sintralcasa) and a member of Movimiento 21, agrees: "The management of basic industries introduced a modality on competing with worker organizations. There is a new bureaucracy, which tries to subjugate workers and uses of unemployed people from different companies as support when provoking by means of confrontation. And violence comes at that point, as we, the workers, do not accept such imposition from employers."

Sintralcasa has denounced more than once Alcasa Company's President Elio Sayago, for instigating violent acts against labor union workers and representatives. Gil, in fact, during his days as a labor union leader, asked - on behalf of workers - for Sayago's removal. His petition is essentially the same he has been making up to now: the right to participate. "In Alcasa, we, the workers, do not take part in decision making."

This means that the so-called workers' control is not practiced. "President Chávez made a straight decision to publicly translate into the Guayana Socialist Plan what workers had been proposing; but in this field, there are people disguised as wolves and chameleons, and there are also those who want, no matter what, to stand out."

Morocoima notes that not only the proliferation of new labor unions has been promoted from the government, in order to weaken the traditional labor union's strength, but also a singular modality has been implemented. "President of Bauxilum José China is the organizational secretary of the Single Union of University Graduates of Bauxilum (Suprabaux); and Wilfredo Flores, a CVG senior executive, is his claims clerk. These are two clear examples of cases, which reveal that delegates from the government labor union are the ones who rule this industry. And this situation happens in other industries as well."

According to Morocoima, this leads to a decisive situation: "This directorship does not want either manifestations of discontent or strikes at the gates of the companies. At first, they used to request the National Guard's help to deal with the strikes, but that showed that the government was suppressing workers' right to freedom of expression. Therefore, they opted for these shock groups."

The complex situation on labor unions in Venezuela has been brought forward at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH). Last Friday 28, October 28, Marino Alvarado -acting on behalf of the Independent Front for the Defense of Employment and Unions (Fades), NGO Espacio Público (Public Space) and NGO Provea (Venezuelan Study Program) - made a presentation in front of CIDH members. He made special emphasis on the practice of criminalizing and using courts to punish protests and freedom of trade unions; and the assassination of union leaders.

The case file compilation carried out by Provea showed that between October 2010 and September 2011 at least 37 people were murdered "presumably for events related to labor union matters." It worsened in 2005, when 45 homicides "for conflicts related to the sale of job positions" were counted (most of them occurred in the state of Bolivar).

Provea's statistical research found that the following year it was the turn of additional 48 victims. In 2006, the number of victims diminished to 29, "most of them killed by paid assassins." In 2008, though, the number of victims rose to 46.

Between October 2009 and September 2010, the death toll climbed to 68. The total number provided by Provea consists of 273 union workers and leaders that have been killed since 2005. Bolivar state continues at the top, leading the violence statistics. However, on the 2011 ranking, Distrito Capital and the states of Aragua, Carabobo, Anzoátegui, Sucre, Miranda, Monagas, Zulia, Mérida and Falcón also feature.

Profitable Chaos

A thesis on this terrible happening done by Morocoima, advances a clue that portrays Guayana's reality very well: "Bolivar state represents 42.27% of attacks on labor right defenders. In fact, between 2003 and 2008, 50 homicides were perpetrated in Bolivarian lands within the construction sector, which revealed the same pattern of violence: contract-killing."

"The new element is the violence acts instigated by the government," highlights Marino Alvarado. "And this situation has two particularities: the first one is that rather than implementing measures to reduce the existing violence, the State has opted since a year and a half ago, to instigate violence. And the second one, is that the State's stockholders are both the governor of Bolivar state and managers of the state-run basic industries."

For his presentation at the CIDH and in order to feed the annual report released by Provea on human rights in Venezuela, Alvarado held plenty of interviews with union representatives in Guayana. Moreover, he found that despite the existing political differences, there were some aspects in common: "The union militants of state-run basic industries reject the violence instigated by external sources."

There is also another common aspect which consists of defining 2005 - when Víctor Álvarez was the Basic Industries and Mining Vice-Minister - as the period in which these violent happenings among union activists worsened and ended up causing what we experience nowadays: State's officers instigating violence through rows and clashes and adding unemployed persons on their payrolls to use them as shock groups.

The strategy is quite simple: "They mobilize union members, especially those from the construction sector and communal councils to do away with worker meetings alleging that those activities are intended to sabotage the worker control process," Alvarado explains. "This reality is rejected by both pro-government trade unionists and those who are critic of the government, but both parties accuse each other of implementing the same strategy."

Translated by Adrián Valera